There are much more promising ways to improve the performance of publicschools than threatening them with financial abandonment.

These aren't easy days for public school teachers. A few weeks ago,Gallatin County native Dave Sanders became the second one in a year to earnhis pay by taking a fatal bullet while attempting to save his students inLittleton, Colo. from a gun-wielding classmate.

It's hard to identify members of any other occupation who have recentlygiven their lives for children while on the job.

Certainly no politicians or members of conservative think tanks were aroundwhen the bullets started flying at Pearl, Miss., Paducah, Ky., Jonesboro,Ark., Springfield, Ore., or Littleton, Colo. Public school teachers wouldseem to be deserving of new respect and gratitude now that some of themhave seen more shots fired in anger than most members of the armed forces.

Not good enough, say the critics.

And so the bandwagon for private and religious schools keeps gainingmomentum, most recently in Florida and Illinois.

Both states in recent days have passed voucher and tax credit legislation.The practical effect is to allow religious and other private schools to tapinto the public treasury, thereby diminishing the amount of money availablefor the public schools.

The proponents enthusiastically assure everyone that the goal is not towreck the public schools but to make them better through "competition," aword whose mere mention is supposed to cause people to bow their heads andgenuflect.

Baloney. America is a nation drowning in competition, and there is ampleevidence that it would be a better place if fewer people were clawing eachother over every last scrap of status, power and wealth. Who knows? Theremight even be fewer shootings in the schools and elsewhere.

As one example of the limits to competition, consider what has happened totelevision programming. Can it be said to have improved since the fieldexpanded from three broadcast networks to hundreds of cable channels? Notunless one is prepared to argue that making more violence, sex andvulgarity available to children marks a step forward for civilization. (Thefive top-rated cable shows for the first week of May were pro wrestling.)

Education, like news and entertainment, is a social good vulnerable to thekind of niche marketing that panders to the lowest common denominator intaste and intellect. Among colleges and universities, a few elite publicand private institutions get to choose among the nation's most talentedhigh school seniors applying for admission to next year's freshman class.Schools further down the academic food chain compete for the leftovers. Ifforced to identify themselves or a school as the cause of academicmediocrity, many parents and students will happily blame the school. Theresult at lesser universities is often a dumbing down of course offeringsand grade inflation in order to maintain enrollments and the jobs that gowith them.

There is no reason to believe the outcome will be any different if vouchersand tax credits for private and religious schools become a prevailingfeature of elementary and secondary education. The same perversecompetition that erodes academic standards at many universities will assertitself from kindergarten through 12th grade. Some of the effects might bedampened by national or statewide standards that would be measured byperiodic testing, but that would require the very kind of government rolein education that proponents of vouchers and tax credits despise.

There are much more promising ways to improve the performance of publicschools than threatening them with financial abandonment. Educationstrategies stressing higher standards, more personal instruction, parentalinvolvement and teacher accountability have helped low income students makesignificant academic progress, according to several recently releasedreports from Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that studies how toimprove education for the poor. But the strategies contained in the reportrequire more money to pay for quality teachers, smaller class sizes andother expenses. The money is less likely to be available when state fundsare diverted from public education toward private and religious schools.

If some parents want to put their children in a school where homosexualityis treated as a bigger sin than ethnic cleansing and Darwinism is banned inbiology classes but revered in economics, that's their right. But theyshouldn't expect government help that undermines public schools' vitalmission of educating students from all walks of life.